Health & Fitness
BPA Disrupts Sperm Development, Linked to Declining Male Fertility
At the rate that we are going, in the near future, human babies might not be able to be conceived "the old fashion way"!
A new study soon to be published in the journal PLOS Genetics , suggests that bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor found in many plastics, can linings and receipts, mimics the effects of estrogen to the point that it may play a role in the worldwide decline in male fertility.
A patient of mine, who is a nurse, has worked at a fertility clinic for about 30 years. When a couple can’t conceive, it is standard procedure to test the husband and the wife, to see where any problems in conceiving might be. She told me that when she first started working there, it was almost always the wife who couldn’t conceive. Now, about half the time it is the husband. Poor sperm count and sperm, quality are commonplace. What changed in the past 30 years? One definitive change is the amount of BPA that men are exposed to.
While there are regional variations, sperm counts and quality have been declining over the past 50 years or so. One 2013 study of more than 26,000 French men, found that sperm concentrations have dropped by nearly 2% each year from 1996 to 2005. Other male reproductive problems, such as testicular cancer and genital birth defects, are also on the rise.
Find out what's happening in Ramseyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical, which mimics the effects of estrogen. Estrogen is found in higher concentrations in women and plays a role in the reproductive development of both sexes.
If we don’t start to reduce our toxic chemical load of these hormone disruptors, the only way that babies will be born in the future, may be through medical intervention.